Tag Archives: Greg Capullo

Batman (DC)
Written by Scott Snyder
Art by Greg Capullo

There are very few comic runs that I have enjoyed quite so much as Scott Snyder’s tenure on Batman. With only one issue remaining, issue 50 really feels like a solid conclusion to an epic adventure that has served as a point of constant stability throughout the years following the launch of the New 52. Continue reading →

Once again Therefore I Geek brings you The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. This time we’re coming home from Baltimore Comic-Con.

The Good

There was sooooo much good. I mean, incredible amounts of good. Baltimore is a small, no stress con. It’s easy to walk across the entire convention floor in only a few minutes and without having to fight through a sea of people to do it. Given that the convention center is right downtown, there are plenty of places to eat, and it isn’t unreasonably difficult to leave the con for an hour and a half for a nice lunch break. I arrived right at ten o’clock in the morning on Saturday and walked right in, but for those who got to the site a little early, the lines were well managed and moved quickly. Continue reading →

This podcast will be discussing plot points which may be considered spoilers. Consider yourselves warned.

Deadpool’s Wedding

In which, Andrew and Tracy are joined by Santana Perez and Anthony Mazzola to talk about the hottest new releases this summer. Our heroes cover everything from the Marvel summer event, Original Sin, to the latest Image comics, such as Mark Millar’s MPH, as well as writing styles, complex characters, and favorite art.Santana and Mazz say funny things, and Tracy laughs a lot.

I’ve been reading comics pretty heavily for the last seven years and only recently have I started to truly appreciate the subtle art form that is inking. Now you may be asking yourself, what is inking? Aside from the answer given to us by Chasing Amy, inking is the intermediate process that takes a comic page from pencils to full colored pages. Back in the old days this actually involved an artist, usually a different artist than the one who drew the pages in pencil, going over the original pencil images in ink, providing additional definition and shading to the image. After being inked the image would then be colored—sometimes by the inker, sometimes by a third artist. These days, artists usually do ink digitally.

What had never really occurred to me was how important inkers actually are to the visual appeal of comics. My New Year’s Resolution this past year was to read more X-Men comics and I figured there was no better place to start than the beginning: X-Men #1 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. In the world of comics it is well known that Jack Kirby is a big deal, to say the least, but in early X-Men issues I was very unimpressed with his art. At some point around issue six however, something changed. The art was considerably better than in the previous issue. It took me longer than I care to admit to realize that the difference was a new inker on the book.

After this realization I sat down and started doing a comparison between the different inking styles. Flipping back and forth between different pages, I found that the difference was like night and day. The first several issues had very heavy lines with excessive amounts of black throughout the page. Details were barely visible and the overall aesthetic was rather unimpressive. The subsequent issues were amazing. The lines were light and clean with wonderful little details hidden all over the page. Not only did this change my opinion of Jack Kirby (which is probably more important) but it also made me realize how much the inker had to contribute to the final comic product. Jack Kirby is recognized as one of the finest comic artists that has ever lived and if a bad inker can seriously detract from Kirby’s work, then one cannot underestimate the importance of an inker.

Beautiful Kirby art from X-Men #10.

This is evident even in modern comics. Snyder and Capullo’s run on Batman has been the shining star of DC’s New 52 and it is in no small part due to Greg Capullo’s art. Even with this stand out art, with each change of inker (and there have been several) the art changes slightly, but noticeably. None of the inkers have done a bad job, and there is something to be said for every artist giving the work their own personal touch, but it would also be nice to maintain a certain level of consistency throughout a run, and especially through individual story lines.

Greg Capullo Batman #6

I am far from completing my exploration of inkers. I have only just scratched the surface and I intend to continue learning until I have a much greater understanding of inkers, how they do what they do, and its importance to the comic industry.